Descent
by Encrypt
Summary: She found herself flexing her fingers around her wand, willing herself to keep the promise she’d just made and trying to remember when she’d decided to break her most important one. -- It takes Bellatrix eight years to go mad.


d e s c e n t

Fear not, dear cousin; in madness, there is great power.

—Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

The sunshine is bright as they play in the garden. Andromeda and Regulus sprawl on a great flat rock in their most tattered play robes, occasionally cheering for their siblings or adding a laughing remark. Narcissa sits among the flowers under the shade of a cedar to save her skin from the sun, more reserved, but enjoying herself just as much.

"Stupefy!" Sirius shouts, waving his twig at Bellatrix with an exaggerated flourish, all the enthusiasm of a nine-year-old infusing his play.

"Reducto!" Bellatrix returns, cheeks flushed and eyes bright with the excitement of their game. Her fingers flex around the knobby stick she's picked up from the ground; in four months time, she will have a wand of her own, and this will not be a game of familiar words and imitated motions, but of colour and light and magic.

"Tarantallegra!" Sirius yells, and Bellatrix laughs.

"That's all you've got?" she taunts, and racks her brain for the spells that she read in the forbidden books in Father's study. "Impedimenta!"

"Petrificus totalus!"

She laughs again, loud and wild. "Crucio!"

And everything stops. Bellatrix looks to the side; Narcissa appears frightened, Regulus is gaping, and Andromeda wears a frown on her face. She looks back at Sirius; he has dropped his "wand" arm to his side and is standing very still, staring at her with a dark look on his face.

"What?" she asks, confused.

"That's an Unforgivable Curse," Sirius says roughly. Regulus nods emphatically in agreement. "Mother told us about them."

Bellatrix laughs, but it is weak in comparison to her energy from before. "Nothing is unforgivable," she tells her cousin in a patronizing tone.

"You shouldn't have used it," Regulus says quietly, slowly; baby of the bunch, he still knows when Bellatrix has made an error.

"Calm down, boys," Andromeda says in a reassuring tone; but her eyes rest on her older sister, full of disappointment. "It wasn't with a true wand. She can't hurt him."

Bellatrix draws herself up, angry at the wound to her pride. "I could," she insists. "Next year I'll come home from Hogwarts and know all these spells for real."

A muffled squeak comes from Sirius, and Bellatrix turns back to him. He tries to look valiant, but he is only nine, and the effort is wasted; there is fear on his face, and something else. Maybe rebellion.

She sighs and takes a few steps forward, wrapping her cousin in an awkward hug, one arm around his back and the other hand cradling his head.

"You don't have to worry, Sirius," Bellatrix murmurs. "I'd never use the Unforgivables on any of you. I promise."

.i.i.

The door to her compartment slides open, and Bellatrix lets out an impatient breath—she had really liked the idea of having the space to herself before arriving at Hogwarts and being thrown headlong into an entirely different world. She would have valued the chance to prepare herself.

"You're a Black," says a voice, and she looks up. Two boys stand there, one fair and one dark; where the first is elegant and refined and pale, the other looks dark and rough and altogether intriguing. She can't be sure which one spoke, but she's almost sure it was the dark one, as the other is curling his lip in an entirely unbecoming manner.

There had been proper respect in his voice, Bellatrix thinks; not groveling, but at least respect for her family. She smiles.

"Lestrange," the fair boy says in complaint, "let's go find somewhere else to sit, yeah?"

Bellatrix realizes in a flash that she's seen these boys before, and in her own home, no less; they've come at grand parties, kept safely behind their mothers' skirts and looking entirely uncomfortable in miniature sets of formal dress robes. Lestrange. Rodolphus Lestrange. Her mother and father speak of him in hushed tones, but Bellatrix has never caught their words. She squints at the fair-haired boy, trying to remember his name.

"Shut up, Malfoy," Rodolphus says good-naturedly, and swings into the compartment, taking a seat beside Bellatrix without so much as asking her if she minds.

She doesn't, anyways, but that's not the point.

Lucius folds his arms and comes into the compartment as well, sitting across from his friend and watching Bellatrix with a superior look, as though she is not nearly interesting enough to merit his attention, but will have to do in the lack of anything better. She wants so badly to make him quail under her glare, to have the better of this pale boy (too fragile,she thinks, like Narcissa), but he is older, and her stern look only makes him chuckle.

"My name is Rodolphus Lestrange," says the other boy on her right, and she turns to him quickly, forgetting Lucius for a moment. "That's Lucius Malfoy. We're in our third year, in Slytherin House." He grins. "The only house worth being in."

Bellatrix nods.

"What's your name, Miss Black?" he asks politely, and she raises her chin, assuming the most regal pose she can.

"Bellatrix," she says in a clear voice, and Rodolphus smiles as Lucius snorts. Bellatrix looks at him sharply.

"Is there a problem, Malfoy?" she asks coldly, and his eyes glitter maliciously.

"Black or not, I will not be spoken down to by some little firstie," he snarls. "You're not on top of the world here, brat, and you should remember it."

Bellatrix hates Lucius more than anyone in the universe in this moment, and she almost forgets to be regal and ladylike, nearly falling upon him with her fists like she does with Sirius when he makes her angry; but suddenly, gloriously, she remembers the only thing that makes coming to Hogwarts worthwhile: she has a wand.

Pulling it out, she points it right at his throat and cries, "Crucio!"

And nothing happens.

Lucius starts to laugh; a dark, mirthless sound that drives Bellatrix through the roof more than anything she has ever seen or heard. Rodolphus shoots him an angry look, but it only serves to encourage him.

"Miss Black—"

"Call me Bellatrix," she interrupts, and a slow grin arcs across Rodolphus' face, leaving her hot and cold and shaking on the inside.

"Bellatrix," he amends, "I don't know where you learned the Cruciatus Curse, but there's more to it than the word. There has to be concentration. There has to be intent."

She opens her mouth to protest, but Rodolphus holds up one finger. "Sure, you were angry with Malfoy. I don't blame you, he can be a right sod." Lucius gives him a dirty look, and Rodolphus returns it with a smirk. "Being angry isn't enough, though," he continues. "No amount of rage will ever be enough if you want to use the Cruciatus. You can't wield it with fire. You have to be cold."

Bellatrix listens.

"To use the Cruciatus," Rodolphus presses, unaware of just how captive his audience is, "you have to really want to cause pain. Not just punish someone, not just get them back because you're angry—you have to be truly focused on causing them horrible pain." He grins. "Some people call it the Sadist's Spell. It's pretty accurate, actually."

Lucius speaks up, his eyes hard and shining. "It's beyond just being difficult magic," he says harshly. "It's forbidden in most circles. An Unforgivable Curse, they call it. You won't learn any of what Lestrange just told you at Hogwarts—Durmstrang, perhaps; Father says they teach the Dark Arts there…"

"How do you two know all of that," Bellatrix says with her eyes narrowed, "if its use is forbidden and its theory isn't taught in England?"

Rodolphus laughs, and it's so loud and unbridled and animal that Bellatrix is caught off guard. "Malfoy said it was forbidden in some circles," he says with a wink. "Not all. Most fathers in the pureblood families pass on this sort of knowledge to their sons. My father's been training me; I reckon Malfoy's has been doing the same."

Bellatrix's face clouds over. "My father doesn't have any sons," she says casually, looking at a point high above Lucius' head. "He was going to train me, but Mother wouldn't let him."

Silence reigns in the compartment, then Bellatrix turns to Rodolphus.

"Will you teach me what you know?" she asks in a low voice.

There is surprise on his face, but it melts into a grin as he truly appraises her for the first time. "Eventually," he says. "When you're ready."

Bellatrix growls.

"Worry about getting sorted first," Rodolphus adds with a laugh. "You won't see me tutoring a Hufflepuff."

"Are you kidding me?" Lucius mutters from the other seat. "That little sadist, anywhere but Slytherin?"

Neither hears him.

.i.i.

After a full year at the castle, Bellatrix knows her way around in the dark; all the same, the summer was enough to let her memory get fuzzy—she trips over Rita's trunk and lets out a muffled string of curses, hopping on one foot and hoping her dormmates don't wake up.

They don't, and she creeps out of the room, making her way to the first years' dormitory.

In the dungeons, there are no traces of light streaming in through windows; Bellatrix holds her breath in the doorway, peering into the dark and trying to guess which bed holds her sister. As though on cue, a low murmur drifts through the room, and she makes out the word 'sister' (or perhaps Cissa; Bellatrix can't be sure, but the voice is familiar).

She breathes.

Padding quietly across the room, she leaps into Andromeda's bed and yanks the deep green hangings shut around them; she casts a whispered Silencing Charm, then proceeds to squeal, rousing her sister from sleep.

"Bella?" Andromeda says groggily.

"It's me, Andy," Bellatrix says with a grin, and sticks her wand in between the two girls' faces. "Lumos." White light bathes them, and they examine each other; Andromeda's face holds fatigue, Bellatrix's, something close to joy.

During first year, she'd longed for her sisters, regularly waking up in the middle of the night and almost getting out of bed to pad in her bare feet to Andromeda's bedroom. She would imagine for a brief moment that she might find her younger two sisters waiting for her, so that the three of them could curl up in an indiscriminate pile of limbs.

Inevitably, she would realize that she was at school, and that Andromeda and Narcissa were at home without her.

Now Andromeda was here.

"I missed you," Bellatrix says plainly, and throws her arms around her younger sister, who hugs back, albeit confusedly.

"But we just spent the whole summer together," Andromeda says slowly.

"Well, yes," Bellatrix says impatiently, batting her protest aside. "But that was different, it was a holiday, not our real life. Now you're here with me, at Hogwarts!"

Andromeda wrinkles her nose. "Hogwarts isn't our real life, Bella. It's at home, with Mother and Father, and Cissy, and Sirius and Regulus—"

Bellatrix shakes her head. "No, Andy, that's what I thought when I first came here, but you'll see, it will feel so much like home, especially now that we're together! Everything changes, it's like a completely new world, and you learn ever so much—"

"It's not the world that's changed, Bella, it's you," Andromeda whispers into the middle of her words, cutting her off sharply. "What happened while you were away? What else have you learned here? It can't just be the lessons. Everyone noticed it when you came home. Cissy and Regulus are afraid, Sirius thinks you're doing something in secret—even Mother and Father have noticed a change in you. Bella, you're darker. When you laugh, it's—" Andromeda breaks off with a shudder.

Bellatrix frowns. "I don't know what you're talking about, Andy," she says, but the words are false even to her own ears.

"It's those boys, isn't it," Andromeda whispers. "Malfoy and Lestrange. I saw the way they were looking at you during the feast." Bellatrix growls softly in her throat, but Andromeda continues. "I don't like it, Bella, there was something in their eyes… they're almost men. Whatever you're getting tangled up in with them, it's dangerous. You have to stop it."

"They hold the secrets of the world," Bellatrix says in a rough whisper. "No one else will tell me—not Father, not our teachers, no one. Malfoy and Lestrange unlock doors for me."

"You leave your sisters behind," Andromeda hisses.

The girls stare at each other for a long moment before Andromeda lies back on the pillow and turns over, her back to Bellatrix.

"Go back to your own bed, Bella," she says softly. "It wouldn't be the same without Cissy here."

Bellatrix hesitates. "Andy…"

"It's not the same," Andromeda repeats, and her cold voice is like an icy dagger in Bellatrix's chest. Immediately she leaps to her feet and silently makes her way back to her own room. As she walks, her fingers grip her wand tightly, and she repeats to herself under her breath the promise she made to Sirius two years before. It becomes a one-word mantra.

Never.

Never.

Never.

.i.i.

"You'll practice on animals," Rodolphus tells her as they stand at the edge of the Forbidden Forest. "It is, after all, an Unforgivable Curse, and I am not donating my body to the cause of testing your skills."

Bellatrix smirks, but she feels something rise in her chest; she is thirteen, and he is fifteen, and they are standing altogether too close for him to mention his body without causing some sort of reaction.

"Animals are far easier than people, anyways," Lucius drawls from where he stands twenty feet away. "Their minds are much more simple."

"It's alright if you can't do it, Bellatrix," Rodolphus says more softly in her ear. "Malfoy and I haven't accomplished it yet, even though we know all the theory. There's not been a witch or wizard in ages who could do it before they were seventeen; not to speak of, at least."

"He could," Lucius says quietly, and Rodolphus stills.

Not paying attention to Lucius' remarks, Bellatrix shakes her hair back and points her wand at the rabbit fifty feet from her. "Crucio!"

Lucius and Rodolphus both jump at the frantic squealing and squeaking that erupts from the animal. Bellatrix's face slides into a smile, and she keeps her wand trained on it.

"I can't believe it," Rodolphus breathes. "Thirteen and she can—"

"He'll want to hear about this," Lucius says in a low voice, and Rodolphus nods slowly before frowning; the animal's cries haven't stopped.

"Bellatrix? You've done it, we saw, you've successfully cast the curse. You can let the creature go now—"

"Not yet," she rasps, and both of the boys look at her sharply. Her lips are drawn back in a wide grin, and her eyes are sparkling.

"Bellatrix," Rodolphus says sharply, and she looks at him at last, fully focused on his eyes. The keening cries end, and the animal trembles, a mass of fur and sweat, on the forest floor. Energy is thick in the air, and Bellatrix's eyes are still unnaturally bright.

"This is not a curse you cast lightly, Bellatrix," Rodolphus says, his voice firm. "It's dark magic, kept alive by being passed down from family to family. It's an insult to its nature if you use it when you please. Do not underestimate its power and its gravity. Choose wisely."

Bellatrix scowls at the order, but she is thirteen, a girl longing to grow up, and he is fifteen, crossing the threshold to adulthood before her, and no-one's words mean more to her than his.

"Merlin and Circe, Lestrange," Lucius grouses, "why'd we teach her this spell if she's just going to besmirch it with her reckless lack of restraint?"

Rodolphus frowns and crossed his arms. "Are you joking, Malfoy?" he says coldly. "Thirteen years old and already able to cast it? We'd be mad not to have taught her."

"He'll want to hear about this," Lucius says again, and Rodolphus nods slowly.

"Who will want to hear about this?" Bellatrix demands. "I want to know who you're talking about."

Rodolphus laughs darkly and wraps an arm around her waist; she feels dizzy suddenly, and forgets what they were talking about.

"You will," he whispers roughly. "Oh, don't you worry, you will."

.i.i.

"I want to go to the party as well," Narcissa says petulantly.

"You're only twelve," Bellatrix says, but it is comfortingly, not dismissively. "I didn't get to go until I was thirteen, and neither did Andromeda or Sirius. Besides, we've been spying on these parties for years, and you and Regulus can peer over the banister all you want." She pats her younger sister on the head and receives a scowl in return.

"I look ridiculous," Andromeda says in a defeated tone, scrutinizing her reflection in the full-length mirror. Bellatrix thinks the deep blue dress robes are tasteful, and make her sister look stunning, but she says nothing. Every time she says anything to her sister, she receives the cold shoulder in return, and beyond wondering just what she's done wrong, it's beginning to make her angry.

"Well, I look fabulous," says a voice behind them, and the three girls whirl. Sirius stands in the doorway, dark green robes hanging off of his broad shoulders. He looks thin, Bellatrix thinks. Too thin.

"And aren't you just a vision in crimson?" Sirius takes three strides across the room and picks Bellatrix up with one arm, already taller than her despite their age difference, and spins her around.

"Put me down, Sirius!" she says with a laugh, and he obliges. No matter what how intense their disagreements are at school, they are family, and the five cousins band together when they're at home. It's an unspoken rule, but Bellatrix knows it will never be broken.

"We've got to make our appearance downstairs, come on," Andromeda says quietly, and Sirius follows her, rolling his eyes at Bellatrix. She doesn't sympathize with his aversion to the people gathered in the downstairs rooms, but then, she's got friends and associates here that he would never deign to speak to, and anyone connected to Sirius at Hogwarts is not welcome in a house of Black.

She frowns, but pushes the thought away.

Rodolphus is waiting at the foot of the stairs, and without a thought, he whisks her away from Andromeda and Sirius. Bellatrix looks over her shoulder, ready to apologize, but Andromeda is quite pointedly looking off into empty space, and Sirius' face is suddenly overcome with anger. It's not worth the effort, and so she turns her attention to Rodolphus, who is allowing the arm he's wrapped around her waist to drift ever lower as they walk.

Bellatrix decides that he must have already been into the wine, and wonders just how much of the party she and Andromeda had wasted away in preparation.

"Rodolphus," she murmurs in his ear, and he pulls her closer. They've made their way to a darkened part of the room, against a wall, and she's got to do damage control before he takes this beyond the limits propriety allows. "Rodolphus," she repeats, her own voice low—damnit, she can't help it, she's a human and of course she's going to react to the way he's kissing her neck. She's fourteen and he's sixteen and just like she told Andromeda years before, he's showing her a world she never dreamed of, a world no one else would lead her to—

"Rodolphus," she manages a third time, and breaks away from him, leaving distance between them as she scans the room to make sure they don't have an audience. They don't. She breathes a sigh of relief.

"What is the problem, Bellatrix?" he asks, irritated at the interruption.

"As much as I'd like to," she says, slightly breathless, "we can't go on like this in public. I'm a pureblood lady, I'm expected to maintain certain—"

"You won't have to worry about that, dear Bella," he murmurs, and her childhood nickname sounds both perfectly right and so very wrong from his lips. She frowns.

"What do you—"

As though on cue, her father's voice echoes throughout the rooms of the ground floor. "Honored guests, if you might direct your attention to the dining hall; Druella and I have an announcement to make."

Bellatrix's jaw drops, and she hurries to the doorway of their ornate dining hall; Rodolphus follows with a smirk. The room is quickly becoming packed with bodies, all in elegant dress; she spies Aurora, one of her dormmates, across the room with Rabastan Lestrange, and Sirius is standing with Andromeda near the stairs.

"There she is," Druella Black murmurs to her husband, and Cygnus' eyes find Bellatrix. He smiles broadly and motions gracefully for her to join her parents. She presses through the crowd; Rodolphus follows closely behind her, and Bellatrix is too distracted to wonder why.

"On this fine evening," Cygnus announces to the gathering crowd, who watches with bated breath, "we have asked you here not only to celebrate this season of prosperity, but to share with you a note of great pride."

Bellatrix almost stumbles as she reaches her mother, but she holds herself up, and turns to face the crowd.

"We present our Bellatrix as a young lady, an upcoming member of pureblood society." Murmurs ripple throughout the crowd, but Cygnus proceeds. "We are also proud to announce her betrothal to Rodolphus Lestrange. The Black family is pleased to form such a bond with the proud house of Lestrange…"

Bellatrix doesn't hear the rest of what her father said, because Rodolphus is there, and he pulls her to him; she's sure he would have kissed her, shocking the impressive crowd gathered before them, but he doesn't get the chance, because someone else speaks first, and his strong voice rings with derision.

"You've got to be joking. Bloody joking."

Silence reigns in the packed dining hall, and every head turns to see Sirius shaking his head incredulously. Standing besides him, Andromeda's lips are pressed into a thin line.

Sirius continues as though this isn't completely surreal; as though every member of upstanding pureblood society isn't gathered right there in front of them; as though every word he speaks isn't a step onto dangerous ground. His grey eyes are stony and with the way he's glaring at Bellatrix, she knows that they're the only two in the room.

"You've just been getting deeper into this mess since the first day you left for Hogwarts," he hisses. "Came home for that first summer with dark circles under your eyes and an unnatural interest in your father's books and too many spells we'd never heard of. I knew it was from him and Malfoy, I knew you were getting in with the wrong people—"

"I'm getting in with the wrong people?" she yells, forgetting where she is. "Look at you! Blood-traitor Gryffindor, prancing around this house as though you still belong here—"

"But," he continues loudly over her words as though she hasn't spoken, "it didn't stop. You just kept doing whatever it was that you three do, meeting secretly all over the place, in the dead of night, even when Andromeda and I were at Hogwarts and you didn't need other people to occupy your time—did she tell you, Rodolphus, that you were just a space-filler at first? But of course her attention drifted when she caught sight of something she wanted—"

"Shut up!" Bellatrix screeches. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!"

"And now," Sirius raises his voice, "when I thought maybe there was a last shining ray of hope to get you away from all of this, you're betrothed! I bet you asked for this arrangement! Next thing you know, your mum's going to hitch Andy and Cissy off to Lucius fucking Malfoy and your fiancé's kid brother, and then the two of you can go off and have dark, twisted little Black-Lestrange babies and teach them whatever corrupted secrets he's been feeding you in the dead of night—"

Bellatrix draws her wand, and the sea of people parts before her; it only takes four strides before she is standing directly in front of him, wand pressed hard into his throat. His eyes glint at her and he doesn't move.

"I will kill you," she whispers, and his eyes flash.

"Oh?" he says in a deceptively light voice. "What of your promise? Or is the value of your word gone along with your integrity?"

"I don't owe you anything," she says levelly. "You're not my cousin." He twists away from her, rubbing the red mark where her wand tip had been.

"No," he said finally, "I'm not," and he draws back his hand and hits her across the face, knocking her backwards and drawing angry outbursts from the guests and a gasp from Andromeda, which is echoed by two softer ones from out of sight up the stairs.

A curse, a hex, a jinx, that would have been fair play; close enough to their days of pretend dueling to brush it off later. This, however, is closing the door on their childhood. This is unforgivable.

"Out!" she shrieks. "Get out!" He is only too glad to oblige, making his way to the door in dead silence. He kicks it open, and there is—there is—what in Merlin's name, there is amotorbike on their doorstep with a trunk strapped on to the back.

"I won't be back," Sirius say harshly as he looks back at her with undisguised hate in his eyes. "You're just going to have to go fucking insane without me."

An animalistic shriek escapes her throat, and she points her wand at him. "Cruc—"

Rodolphus grabs her around the middle and knocks her wand arm down, and it is the first moment she realizes that anyone else exists; Sirius takes that opportunity to fling one leg over his bike and soar off into the night.

The cries of outrage behind her wash over her, but Rodolphus grips her tightly. "Never," he hisses in her ear, "use that curse casually. Haven't I told you that before? I don't care how much you like it and how much you've taken to it, it is still Unforgivable and now everyone's going to be asking difficult questions about how you know it. You are going to have to lie."

Bellatrix turns furious eyes on him. "I'm prepared to," she says in a deathly voice. "Don't worry about it."

"Bellatrix," he says, "you cannot whip that curse out when you please. I've a mind to stop training you with Lucius—"

"That's fine," she sneers, "I've already learned everything I need to know—"

"No, you haven't," he says firmly. "There's more to dark magic than the Cruciatus Curse, and just because you think it's all you need doesn't mean you can disregard generations of tradition—"

"Okay, Rodolphus, I won't use it lightly, I promise," she snaps, and glances over her shoulder at the thinning crowd. Her parents wear suspicious looks, but the guests are losing interest in her already, turning to each other to gossip about the flamboyant departure of the heir to the house of Black.

Bellatrix caught Andromeda's eye, and it is pure fury that catches her in the face before her younger sister whirls and runs up the stairs. She finds herself flexing her fingers around her wand, willing herself to keep the promise she'd just made and trying to remember when she'd decided to break her most important one.

Never.

Never.

Never.

.i.i.

"There's no more we can teach you, Bellatrix. You've reached the limit of our knowledge." Rodolphus' smile is thin, but she doesn't care enough to think about what that might mean. She doesn't care at all.

"I'm strong enough to use it now," Bellatrix says calmly. "On anyone."

Rodolphus flinches slightly, but Lucius only barks out a laugh. "You'd better not try it, Black, but you know what? I'm betting you're right.

"And there's no way to stop it?"

"None at all," Lucius announces confidently, but Rodolphus gives him a sidelong glance.

Bellatrix pounces at once. "Is there a way?"

Rodolphus gives Lucius one fleeting look before turning to answer Bellatrix. He holds her gaze.

"The Cruciatus Curse," he says slowly, "is completely psychological. It only works if—"

"If the caster really means it, I know," Bellatrix interrupts.

Rodolphus gives her a small, indulgent smile. "That's only half of it. The Cruciatus Curse only works if the caster really means it, and the victim is afraid of it. It works by making the mind believe that you're in the worst pain imaginable. Of course, everyone's ready to believe that; the Unforgivables are the most frightening spells any witch or wizard has ever heard of."

Bellatrix waits breathlessly, and Rodolphus grins weakly at her. Lucius took the opportunity to brusquely interrupt.

"You have to want the pain," he says roughly. "Not just think you deserve it, or some noble Gryffindor shite, but actually want it. If you're not afraid of the pain, then your mind won't create it. The curse works exactly the opposite, then—gives the 'victim' the strongest ecstasy possible."

At Bellatrix's expression of utter rapture, he exclaims, "But that's only the magical theory! No-one can do that!"

Bellatrix looks at Rodolphus, as though for confirmation. He shrugs apologetically. "You'd have to be quite mad," he says lightly, "to want the Cruciatus."

.i.i.

"Professor," Bellatrix says lazily from the back of the classroom.

Professor Breslin doesn't look up from the papers he is shuffling on his desk. "Yes, Miss Black?"

"As much as I enjoyed your stimulating lecture last week," she says in a dangerously soft voice, "I believe that you may need to offer a minor retraction in light of recent events."

Every student in the classroom is listening now, and the absolute lack of background noise allows Breslin to respond in a voice just as low as Bellatrix's. "What might that be, Miss Black?"

"Well, last week, you spoke to us about the Unforgivable Curses," she stresses in a mock falsetto. "Now, though, according to the Daily Prophet, they're perfectly forgivable—depending on who uses them, of course."

"You're absolutely right, Miss Black," Breslin says steadily, finally looking up from his desk to meet Bellatrix's challenging gaze. Looking away and around the classroom at the rest of his students, who watch breathlessly, he continues in a louder voice. "For those who haven't seen the Daily Prophet, the Minister for Magic has approved the use of the formerly Unforgivable Curses by Aurors when they deem it necessary."

Quiet gasps and murmured ripple throughout the classroom, but Bellatrix speaks loudly. "One would wonder, Professor, at the ethics of this?" She laughs. "At what makes the use of certain spells permissible when used by certain people but not by others?"

"You know perfectly well, Miss Black, why this decree has been given," Breslin says firmly, "as does every person in his classroom. He raises his tone a bit further. "There is a complete difference between defence and attack, and the Ministry was given no choice—"

"The Ministry," Bellatrix interrupts, standing from her chair as her eyes blazed with sudden anger, "fancies itself above standards—"

"It's funny that you should say that, Miss Black," her professor counters with uncharacteristic sarcasm, "considering your background, your upbringing—ruthless and indiscriminate violence are no stranger to your family, are they? But I understand your fervor, I think—if I found myself on the wrong end of an Auror's wand, I wouldn't be too comfortable, and I'm sure this decree's got you—"

"If you know what's good for you," Bellatrix snarls, "you will not finish that sentence."

The whole class draws in a sharp breath as twenty sets of eyes register her steady hand, gripping an ebony wand and leveling it directly at their professor—who only sits and calmly watches her.

"War has a way of depriving people of their humanity, no matter how desperately they cling to it," he remarks, every trace of his earlier passion gone. "It is not the first time a decree with questionable ethics has been made, and it will not be the last. Five points from Slytherin for the outstanding display of disrespect. Please sit down, Miss Black, so that we can proceed with today's lesson."

The following week, the Gryffindor and Slytherin sixth-years file into class to find the Headmaster standing at the front of the room. He informs them with a solemn tone that Professor Breslin would not be returning for the duration of the school year, as he'd been the victim of a tragic accident which had damaged his mind, and would be recovering in St. Mungo's for quite a long time.

Bellatrix looks straight forward at the blackboard, refusing to meet the perceptive blue eyes that doubtlessly wished to search her own. She flexes her fingers around her wand and allows a small smile to fleetingly grace her lips.

The door has been opened.

.i.i.

"I don't care how headstrong you fancy yourself to be, Black, keep your mouth shut unless he invites you to speak."

"If he's put up with you for this long, Malfoy, I can't imagine there's anything he could hear from me that would cause a problem."

"Children," Rodolphus says warningly over his shoulder as he leads the way. Bellatrix and Lucius stride side by side, and though both are of age by this point, the label isn't really far off as they bicker like first-years. "We're almost there, so could you kindly reign yourselves in? Remember who we're about to see."

Lucius is immediately quiet, but Bellatrix isn't finished. "Why do we have to behave so differently?" she asks petulantly. "You still haven't told me who it is we're going to meet—"

"I wouldn't dare," Rodolphus interjects smoothly. "He'll take care of the introductions himself. Our Portkey, children."

A silver spoon lies in the dirt before them, and Lucius and Bellatrix stare at it apprehensively before glancing at Rodolphus, who rolled his eyes and picked it up between slender fingers.

"Now," he says impatiently, and his friend and his fiancé step forward to gently touch the spoon.

They find themselves in the midst of a forest, thick canopy of leaves blocking out the stars overhead. Bellatrix shivers, and a smooth voice jerks her to attention.

"Is this the girl?"

Nothing else matters in that moment; not Rodolphus, not Lucius, not the fact that she is in the middle of a fucking forest Merlin-knows where for reasons unbeknownst to her. Hisvoice—it captures her and doesn't let her go.

Beside her, Rodolphus drops to one knee and bows his head; on her other side, Lucius roughly delivers a blow to the back of her knee, forcing her to take the same position as he, too, kneels on the damp forest floor.

"It is, my Lord," Rodolphus says, not looking up from the ground. "Under the careful tutelage of Lucius and myself, she successfully cast the Cruciatus Curse on a hare at the age of thirteen."

A barely perceptible intake of breath comes from the shadows, and then a low chuckle. Bellatrix can't stop herself from looking up, and when she does, she gasps. The figure who stands before her is pale, paler than anyone she has ever met, with distorted features and red in his eyes.

And he is the most compelling thing Bellatrix has ever seen.

"Interesting," he says softly, and Bellatrix just stares, not responding to the urgent nudges from Rodolphus and Lucius.

"Tell me who you are," he commands, and immediately Bellatrix wants him to know everything.

"My name is Bellatrix Black," she breathes.

The figure before her smiles. "I am Lord Voldemort," he says in a chillingly soft voice that carries out through the silence nonetheless.

In that moment, she knows; pieces and bits of whispered conversations and overheard snatches and disregarded rumors all click together and the picture is complete in her head.

"You are an exceptional girl, Bellatrix Black," says Lord Voldemort. "Even for your remarkable family. To have such a handle on your abilities so early in life is truly a gift." He leans forward. "I want you to join me."

"I will."

He takes a small step back in surprise at the resolve in her voice, but Bellatrix plays with fate and flirts with death by standing to her feet and drawing herself up proudly before him. Rodolphus grits his teeth and Lucius mutters something that sounds suspiciously like 'stupid, stupid girl.'

"I'm ready to serve you, my Lord. With everything that I have. All that I need is for you to teach me. Equip me to more fully do your bidding."

This man—if that is even the proper word to describe the regal and powerful and not entirely human figure that stands before her—knows things. She knows he holds forbidden fruits, knowledge that Rodolphus and Lucius can only dream of. He is now the one who can unlock the door for her, not them; he holds the key to secret worlds, and she trembles with excitement.

"Such a bold one you are, Bellatrix, making requests in the moment you meet me." Rodolphus and Lucius do not breathe, but Lord Voldemort chuckles. "I will give you knowledge, passionate young lady. Is there anything else you desire in exchange for your service?"

She bites her lip and hesitates, but only for a moment.

"Will you cast the Cruciatus Curse on me?"

"No!"

Rodolphus leaps to his feet and jerks Bellatrix backwards, wrapping his arms around her and pressing her head to his chest despite her struggle. "My Lord," he says apologetically, staring at the ground as though to erase the disregard for respect he has just displayed, "Bellatrix doesn't know what she's asking. Please, don't subject her to that—"

"I know exactly what I'm asking," Bellatrix snarls, pushing him away and turning back with expectant eyes. "Please."

Lord Voldemort nods once, slowly, and draws his wand carefully from his sleeve. Rodolphus shouts, but the sound is strangely muffled in Bellatrix's ears.

For a fleeting moment before the spell is cast, she is afraid. Bellatrix knows what this spell can do, has seen its effects, has felt its power coursing through her veins as she holds her magic in check. Fear grips her as she realizes she is willingly offering over her body to be tortured by the most powerful being she knows of.

Something echoes in her mind, and though it hasn't really been so long since the words were spoken to her, it seems as though they're coming from another lifetime: you'd have to be mad to want the Cruciatus.

She smiles.

"Crucio," he whispers.

And instead of bracing herself for the pain that should course through her, Bellatrix holds her arms out from her sides and throws her head back and laughs.


End file.
